


Reign of Blood

by Skyeblux



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, BDSM, Bloodplay, Explicit Sexual Content, First Meetings, M/M, Master/Slave, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slavery, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Ideation, Swearing, WIP, dark but eventually brightening up with some spots of sunshine over London in the afternoon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:00:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyeblux/pseuds/Skyeblux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Captain John Watson is invalided home to a London, not at war, but already beaten by the emergent Vampire race.  As he struggles to find his place in a world he barely recognises, the darker truths of Vampire rule become known and he vows to fight for humanity but his reckless mission for the resistance goes dramatically awry as he encounters a vampire by the name of Sherlock Holmes.  Now on his radar, John, must never escape but become his.  Slavery, sexual and violent content with non-con themes.  Also WIP, seriously WIP though I'll try to keep at it but it's going to be a long journey.  First chapters are world building but the focus will be on character study, porn and perhaps something deeper!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Because war is real, I see no evil

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into the Sherlock fandom and this really isn't great, just flexing my writing muscles again and trying to get back into the way of composing fanfiction. It's WIP, and I admit I'm not always good at those so I won't be offended if you give it a miss. I've basically written 3 chapters of introduction so far so please feel free to comment with ideas or suggestions. This will hopefully wind up not being as dark as it sounds but I'm a chronic depressant so I'm not promising. Basically this is a fic I wanted to read forever but nobody had written so shucks, I may as well give it a go. It's extremely out of my comfort zone, a slavery fic with serious, hard core BDSM and dubious consent issues on the horizon so you have been warned. Anyway enjoy!

London was nothing like he remembered it and yet in other ways it was unchanged and that was the cruellest torment of all. Denial is such a fickle and foolhardy emotion and yet its allure, like an itch under the skin, impossible to ignore, to not scratch even as the newly mottled blood and puss of scabbed wounds rip open again and you know the injures will now scar, the body valiantly beginning the healing process again but this time weakened even further, the flesh more unrecognisable, more fragile, more damaged. 

The London of ‘before’ was ever-present; the identifying features of the historic, capital city, still majestic, still echoing of love and labour beyond the grave, art and culture, passion and pain, steps of a journey through the life of a being outliving its creators - ‘London’, resplendent in its victorious Portland stone battlements of the watchful Tower of London, the triple dome cresting from Wren’s imagination into the modern sky-scape, bolstering the Thames, the ‘Eye’ contemporary and crass, overshadowing the thatch of Shakespeare’s legacy, the guardian of the guards in ‘big brothers’ Houses of Parliament; still cosmopolitan, still sprackiling with the mundane masses, trudging to office blocks, stock markets, restaurants and retail malls but with the undercurrent of blood threatening to rise and drown a history and stewardship that was never our own.

Residents of developed worlds seemed to consider ‘war’ a fable of the past, a cautionary tale with much suffering and much pointless, fucking waste but remote, removed, and anachronistic in homes with sky TV, enacted violence in video games, Wii-fit boxes when even walking a dog is sublimated to avoid bad weather, pet-care and vet’s bills; everything synthesised, even relationships blossoming over social media, nothing sharp, nothing too real, a symbiosis with machines.

‘They’ thought he was nuts, or joking, or suicidal. Once war was synonymous with bravery, glory and manhood and it was easy to understand the gleam of such treasures but now we knew better. War was self-serving, achieving nothing of permanence, a necessary evil until better ways of communication and power could be organised, a repeated cycle of population control. Knowing all this and still fighting? That’s speaks of a devotion, compassion and determination that few now understand or can muster. Because war is real. It shouldn’t happen but it does and men like John, still believe that human life is worth protecting, that the innocents who suffer for nothing other than place of birth, should be helped, that the men and women that risk their lives should be remembered. Some poor sods have to do it, to be the soldiers so that others can take for granted the smallest of blessings, the walk to the post-box, the 15seconds of small talk when you run to the corner shop for milk, the queue to the cinema, the smell of the first open fires in Autumn and John was never someone who could stomach sacrifice on his behalf, or let others suffer when he could help and heal. He needed purpose, the cliché of ‘making a difference’, of doing good, that made sleep a reward not a waste and food a luxury not a diet plan. 

He was on his second tour in Afghanistan when the Reign of Blood dawned over the complacent cities of the world. When the vampires revealed themselves and strode nonchalantly into power. Society survives through its organisation and structure, the unspoken rules of etiquette and behaviour, so when it came to light that the seats of government were either occupied by these bloodied beings or patronised by them through men of greed or delusions of future indoctrination to the membership of the undead, humanity was screwed. It had no other platforms to resist, media moguls were in pockets of prosperity or fear, there was a breakdown and surveillance of communication and though the vampires were vastly outnumbered by the human populace there was no leadership for the small groups that tried to revolt, no way to gain followers quickly enough. The basics of life – food, shelter, health, all had faceless dictators who worked steadily and secretly for years until their positions and knowledge were indispensable. 

The war for the freedom of humanity lasted only 125hours. It was a fire sale with only one possible victor and the concessions for those in power seemed minimal. There was no need for restructuring, the vampires were already in power over everything and had been for years. Humans would retain their jobs and positions, even their most of their wealth and see to the running of the country. Perhaps they were more greatly aware of the puppet-masters behind the scenes but people were used to hierarchies, middle-management, power plays and mind games. Useful members of society would continue to be useful and since it was the useful members of society that still had any real power, their acquiescence was all but ensured. For others though, life would change and change dramatically.

Much was played down concerning the fate of those ‘others’, the media not permitted to dwell on anything so antagonistic or reprehensible, nothing that might incite public unrest or inspire revolution. And for John, life continued at its break-neck, adrenalin fuelled pace. Vampires were too sensible to be totting guns in Godforsaken, foreign lands so he meet very few and those he did meet were as passable as they had always been although they stood a little straighter, smirked a little more evilly and demanded obedience, though they were usually high-ranking and thus this was already their due. Rumours spread though. Stevens, a pretty young private grew more and more pale; fell further behind on routine ops, cried more when others pretended to sleep. 

The new law and order was thus: Vampires were always right, always indulged their way, they could act with impunity, beyond the judicial laws of man. They were lazy, entitled and wanton, gluttonous in their appetite for blood and flesh. They could be vicious, were unconscionable, implacable to attempts to implore to justice, mercy, affection or sentiment. Great epicureans – eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may…live and live and thus other endeavours seemed worthless.

But while the arid sun burned the contours of tenderised flesh and bone, while he awoke to standing, armed and alert to a half-registered scream, while Kevlar armour bloomed red and blood rained from bullets, shrapnel and debris, while insurgents still surged ignorant or uncaring of their common enemy, while blood and death and war made sense, the senseless suffering of humans now suddenly relegated to food by their dominate predators in sleek business suits, on tarmacked, city littered streets, was what was deemed unreal. War demanded your attention and the reign of blood at home, on a battle field already fallen and won was as real to John as IEDs and emergency field surgery to those who fiddled on Blackberries while scanning the latest celebrity gossip in the Daily Mail.

And then John was shot and everything changed but what hurt the most was how nothing seemed to have changed at all.


	2. Go gently into that good night?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John returns to London and forgot the 'Reign of Blood', he's still reeling over 'invalided home'!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! Had an essay due! Still setting the scene somewhat in this chapter. I think this could get pretty dark! Appologies for having no clue about Rugby, which I'm sure is obvious! It's all made up, of course!  
> Chapter title is of course from the famous villanelle by Dylan Thomas.  
> Thanks so much for your comments and kudos. They are completely unexpected.  
> Thanks to Kleoette John is now drinking Otter Bright beer!!! So had to be done! Great suggestion!

‘Invalided home’!  At least he didn’t have to act grateful for his ‘good fortune’.  With a cursory glance, living London, closely resembled the London that lived in his memory but there was a slight shift, static in the air before a storm.  There was a tension and feeling of anticipation but of dread not excitement.  

But for John, as for most people, the victories and failures in his own head and life were paramount to national matters or global schemes.  He felt as he expected to feel; a self-fulfilling prophecy perhaps?  He felt useless.  He was damaged, a tight and marginally restricted shoulder, a psychosomatic limp, skilled for another life, craving another life.  His life now was constant frustration.  Diplomacy and material wealth are of little substance on the battle field but here he was fighting a new war and losing; he was ill-equipped, untrained and a prisoner of the most pointless, fucking circumstances when viewed from the sniper’s sight of life or death and finding it difficult to remember what he was fighting for in this life, after life, after life monotony for which he bleed to protect.  

His army pension was a pittance, his bed-sit functional but depressing and his tossing and turning on a soft, warm mattress was less luxurious than falling asleep, with a crick in his neck, on the back of a transport headed for base.  Money and possessions, jobs and friends – these things were supposed to matter now.  He had to learn to make these things matter now or there was no goal, no accomplishment, and no relief.  _No sense in living_ …he thought blankly as he stroked the smooth, cool metal of his Browning against his left temple, rubbing at the flesh as if to relieve an approaching headache.

John, ~~Captain Doctor~~ John Watson, recognised the symptoms of depression on an intellectual level but as one suffering from depression he experienced that tunnel vision that sees only despair, hopelessness, loneliness, and uselessness stretching off further  and further into the abyss that represents his future and everything else on the periphery - Harry his sister, friends who’d love to know he was home, who’d share a pint, or several and slap backs and guffaw to crude jokes, the possibility of work, probably just as a locum in general practice since his tremours…his bloody, belligerent hand…, meeting someone new, ”broken, pathetic, damaged” - all this and any feelings of hope, potential and motivation had as much weight as a fruit fly lighting on his nose.  He was a proud man.  He did not want pity and thus could not cope with familiarity that would now be tainted and incomplete – a doctor who can’t stitch, a friend who can’t lug another home after too much beer, a brother who couldn’t save his alcoholic sister even when he was whole.  He shrugged off these thoughts, they weren’t all consuming yet but soon.  He placed the gun in the bedside table with an ‘I’ll be back’ pat to its chamber.  And refocused on one of those thoughts – beer!

Down at his local, formerly ‘The Red Lion’, now ‘The Red Fang’, he supped an Otter Bright beer and tried to remember the thrills and spills of a rugby career at uni while bemoaning an epic ball fumble on the flat-screen T.V. above the bar.  After a while a group of blokes, ties loosened and suit jackets shed like manacles of modern, office-dom oppression, noticed his interest was in their team and shuffled sideways like ruggers in a scrum, the outsider jostling his shoulder with a friendly, “What you think of McCarthy’s form?  The refs a wanker, I tell ya!”

“A wanker in control of the penalty box is a dangerous wanker indeed!” he shot back on automatic, suddenly remembering this dance.  “Though Patterson’s all over the show, you’d think he spent all last night on his back in a whore house!”

“Aye, prissy fucker!  Did you see him faking injury after Dobson’s tackle?  He should be on the fucking stage.  Cry baby!” the closest of the rumpled business pack enthused.  He had dark brown hair, gelled to battle gravity and a face that was conventionally handsome yet so bloody ordinary.  

“Been watching too much football.  They’re all doing victory dances and playing to the crowd now.  Not like it used to be, when men were men and wouses played tennis!” John pointedly swirled the last dregs in the bottom of his glass.

“Get you another?” 

“Ta, think I’ll need it to get through this game!” Which game he was referring to, he wasn’t sure.  God this was tedious, crude grandstanding, arguing the merits of men with a bunch of blokes who wouldn’t know the business end of a gun from their butts.

A flurry of wolf-whistles and the cold draft of the door opening, carrying the scent of cheap fragrance, made John turn.  Three women were poised near the entrance, one flagging down the bartender while the gazes of the others roamed the room.  Dressed in variations of black fish-nets, ribbed bodices and alarmingly short skirts of sickly bright colours with faux fur coats and dramatic make-up, tilting the eyes exotically with smoky allure and thick pencilled lids, they screamed predator like a pack of hyenas salivating over a lone gazelle or, strangely enough, over John.  The taller bleached blonde motioned towards his cane, propped against an adjacent bar stool, and the others seemed to catch on quickly.

“Hello gorgeous!” the brunette in a leopard skin, skin tight skirt purred as she insinuated herself between the bar and his body.  “Haven’t seen you in here before?”

“Ah no…no you wouldn’t have,” John smiled politely through it was more of a demur cringe and absently tried to press his legs together, shifting the stool a little further back to avoid trapping long, stockinged legs.  

“Oh, isn’t he adorable Mable,” another gushed, ruffling his ash blonde hair.  His lipped tightened and ears pinked as he fought down the urge to smack the hand anyway rather violently.

“I’ll blow you out back of the gents for fifty or we could go somewhere more comfortable, what with your leg n’ all, if you prefer but that’ll be extra.  Time’s money you know!”  

For a moment John just sat there with wide eyes, mouth hanging open and the occasional hacking noise as he forced air up his throat in some defensive non-chuckle.  _Bloody heck, ok, he may be gagging for it, one of the few advantages to ‘invalided home’ but hell, he was not some pity fuck nor so desperate as to pay for it.  And these girls, no pretence, bold as brass, barely lowering their voices to proposition him?  That didn’t happen right?  I mean prostitution wasn’t legalised while he was away was it?  Fuck!_   Battle instincts born of rank and the need to earn the trust and respect of your men conflicted with the calming voice muttering _, ‘You can’t deck a girl.  They’re not worth it.  Everyone’s watching.  Be the better man.’_   

Unconsciously he squared his shoulders and stood, straight and firm, “Thank you for the offer,” his voice was steely and expression belyingly pleasant, “but us crippled veterans prefer less dangerous methods of fornication.  Why risk an STD when we survived dodging bullets?”

The girls stiffened at once looking insulted and a splash of cackling laughter erupted from the blokes behind.  “Wanker!”  (Mable, was it?), fairly screamed.  “Enjoy your right hand, poof!  Fly away and bugger more soldiers, a real woman wouldn’t touch you with theirs!”

“I’m left-handed actually!” he crowed back _.  Ok, that was immature John!_   The glitter brigade beat a hasty retreat out the door and John carefully edged back into his chair and reached for the abandoned pint.  Self-respect: 0, Sexual frustration: 1!

“Nice one, mate!” Oh yeah, he was apparently somebody’s ‘mate’ tonight.  A strong arm patted him on the back and he raised his pint in the universal ‘cheers’ fashion.

“Can’t believe they were so bloody open about it?  What’s become of this city?” he was starting to slur a little, probably should be in his last drink.

“Vampires!” his ‘mate’ swore like it was obvious.

“H’uh?” _Articulate John!_   Several eyes now meet his, some showing incredulity, others pity but mostly genuine confusion, a state of being that seemed to be going around.

“Vampires?  You can’t have been away that long?” John blinked a blank stare.

“Money’s tight what with the new taxes and prosies are desperate to earn a few quid to keep themselves off the street.  It started just with prisoners but now all the homeless have been rounded up for the service of our ‘honoured, blood-sucking leaders’.  I’ve heard rumours they’re going after the insane next, anyone locked up in sanatoriums and such and even targeting those on benefits, disabled or unemployed.  Wouldn’t be such a demand if the vamps would just drink from them when they’re hungry.”

“What do they do?” He didn’t want to know but curiosity is a slippery thing and true anger, true passion, unlike anything he’d felt since he was discharged was starting to bubble in his veins, make them red again and bloodied, make them useful, pumping chemicals through his system that would allow muscles to tense, fists to punch, legs to…well maybe not, his traitorous body reminded him that although he might be feeling again, he was far from ‘himself’ again.

“They’re slaves, beaten, tortured, fucked and bleed.  Whatever their ‘masters’ want and humans don’t mean shit to them.  They don’t bother looking after them half the time so they die, or commit suicide or whatever and more are herded in.  You must never look a vampire in the eye.  They’re still mostly satisfied with societies’ rejects but if you register on their radar they can demand anything and there’s not a whit you can do about it.”

“Shit!” John suddenly felt sick and desperately needed to get home, pushing away from the bar and mumbling some, hopefully situational clichés while falling through the door.  He didn’t make it home.  He barely made it round the corner before he threw up a stomach content of beer, peanuts and partial toast.  God, those women, they’re…we’re at war and those were some of the soldiers, the rest of us puffed up generals, gossiping, swilling alcohol and looking away for fear we have to react to what we see or worst still, become it.  

He didn’t realise, really he…well of course on some level, he knew there was fear, knew something a ‘bit not good’ was going on to someone, somewhere but he didn’t realise just how much he lived in the midst of it.  And damnit, he’s not the sort of person that can ignore that.

Over the next few weeks John, acquainted himself with the enemy.  Vampires didn’t sparkle in sunlight; they weren’t misunderstood victims, just searching for someone to show them the light; they were evil.  The older tomes of vampire fiction had got it right, ungodly demons all.  John wasn’t too sure on just how he viewed such an abstract as the ‘soul’ but he was a doctor, and knew of conditions such as sociopathy, psychopathy were patients seem to have no sense of right and wrong, where emotions are illusive but useful for mimicry to achieve ones desires.  Vampires are the greatest mimics of all. 

He spoke to Susan Stafford, a friend of his physiotherapist, a nurse working at St. Bart’s hospital.  She confessed that one of the consultants on the neurology ward was a vampire, obviously had been a vampire while they worked together, and he had seemed genuinely compassionate, going that extra mile to ensure patients comfort, taking time to talk with them and offer what reassurances he could, the kind of man that always seemed born into a caring profession and yet the day after the news broke, he crushed the neck of an orderly who splashed his shoes with murky water from a cleaning cart and drained a young mother of two with a blasé, “tumour was probably malignant anyway!”.  

Yes, vampires were the greatest mimics of all, slipping through the throngs of humanity and copying mannerisms, faking feeling, and adopting pointless intonations of comfort, kindness or sincerity.  No one had known.  No one had suspected and if they had, they wouldn’t have even believed themselves.  They also seemed to have a predilection towards violence, the most intense form of entertainment out there once you’d seen it all and they relished in the pain of others.  They were faster and stronger than humans.  They healed quicker and most injures were non-fatal as long as the vampire feed regularly, the human haemoglobin acting as a catalyst which intensified and strengthened bodily functions, increasing the rate of healing, leaving breathing and regular food consumption to be nothing more than an occasional annoyance, one breathe, one beat of the heart, one intake of energy fuelling their systems to optimal functionality for seemingly impossible periods of time.  

They looked more or less human but from the superior end of the gene pool, developing the traits for survival of the fittest although when their fangs descended, their faces, demonstrating advanced muscular and skin elasticity, hardened, the bones more prominent in defence of their killing and feeding source and their eyes, although John had yet to glimpse any up close, were said to be more luminous, sharper, with a translucence like cat’s eyes, more attuned and adept.

It was after a month of studying his newest obsession that the depression, the post-traumatic stress, and feelings of uselessness returned.  John didn’t even realise his new-found purpose and esteem and had little time to bemoan or miss his previous state.  He began exercising more, signed up to a local gym, spent his days talking to everyone he could who was brave enough to share their experiences and reacquainting myself with the medical world, though this time behind closed doors where doctors and scientists meet in secret to discuss any new data on their vampire foe.  John never doubted the existence of resistance groups, in fact he expected them of mankind, the humanity he believed in and fought for didn’t ‘go gently into that good night’, didn’t accept injustice and oppression; it battled for freedom, for basic human rights to live, to learn, to die as men, still the superior species in understanding, compassion, and conscience and so it didn’t surprise him to find himself to be one of the meagre resistance nor did it surprise him when he immediately sprang to the defence of a young woman, crying and pleading in a dark alleyway near his home.  What did surprise him was the ease with which he was shrugged off and the carelessness with which the attacker mutilated and discarded his victim with such boredom and no reaction to John as even a potential threat, just a bug on the muddy ground of a dissolute London.  


	3. "A Break that would Make it Ok"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's on a mission, pity it's a Kamikaze one, but he doesn't much care. It'll be a noble death. Time to enter the dragon's den! Unfortunately there's a vampire waiting inside to remind him that life's not easy or fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this reads ok? I have a bad habit of writing in a string on consciousness and in this case it's supposed to add to the pace, though I did try to break it up a little for readability. May have to come back to this one when I'm not snowed under with work and college! Thanks so much for the reviews they make me wanna jump like Tigger and squeak like that squeaky frog video - haven't seen it? Check youtube!!!  
> The chapter title is from 'Angel' by Sarah McLachan and you should read all the lyrics - they're perfect for our wounded hero here!  
> So chapter in a nutshell - "Enter Sherlock" Enjoy!

Chapter 3

It was this reinforced need to either end his life or to start living again that seduced John to brave danger, although bravery is by far the kindness term for stupidity.  Their enemy was too unknown and too dangerous to fight in ignorance.  They needed to get their hands on a real live, fang-gnashing vampire and so it was with this purpose in mind that ~~Doctor~~ Captain John Watson entered a dingy, bolt-hole of an illicit club for fang-bangers - people of dubious morality and circumstance, deluding themselves with the popular romanticized versions of the fang-kinded, hoping to be ‘turned’, so desperate for funds to charge the bottom feeders of the vampire hierarchy for drugs or sex or some so lost that any sensation, even fangs in a carotid artery was preferable to wasting nothingness.

The basement interior was shabby and not chic, stinking of moth-balls, stale ale and human fluids.  The threadbare sofas, in stained wine hue, were probably scavenged from some skip or other, previously at home in some lush and prosperous gentlemen’s club before being devalued to disposable waste.  The main floor was a circular common area with a miss-match of pilfered coffee and card tables and a few mahogany booths, with carved acorn caps, stood near the entrance in a darkened recess suggesting that this was once one of those quaint, old-time pubs.  The bar still stood along the side wall but it had seen better days and was ‘cheered’ or further degraded with the addition of red, fluffy, fairy lights. 

John ordered a pint of larger, whatever was on tap, as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the smoky dim.  Bodies, writhing and slothful, materialised slowly from the darkness, faint glimpses of pale skin and red blood in the splintered beams of the cracked glass of low-hung lamps.

Strangely enough John felt little more out of place here than he did in his ‘cosy and compact’ [read cramped and suffocating] bedsit or huddled in the back rooms of pubs with fellow confederates feeling equally as useless and frustrated.  In fact here, here he felt more himself, ironic that such a feeling should resurface on the potential eve of his demise.  Here he was on a mission, here he was a soldier looking for the runt of the litter, still a vampire so perilous but possible to contain for a veteran skilled in combat and stealth and if his luck ran out then well, at least he could convince himself that it was a noble death, helping the resistance, sacrificing himself for the greater good and he’d be damned if he didn’t take at least one of those fanged fuckers out with him.

There!  Sitting slightly awkwardly, forward on a divan with ‘busy’ couples on either side was a woman - sweet face, strawberry blonde hair, petite and shyly averting her eyes, trying to include herself in a conversation across the way with little success.  She looked so human, the kind of woman John would have tried his best pick-up lines on, playing up the gentile and understanding bedside manner of a seasoned doctor but nursing the fierce protective urge of the soldier close to the surface, a weapon in experienced hands.  However, as his eyesight adjusted fully and he sidled along the bar somewhat for a closer inspection, he noted the dark bruises below the eyes, the chips in her pearl nail varnish, the creases and stains on her, once elegant, top and how it hung a little too loosely off her bones, shadows in the dip of her elbow too dark to be merely be the trick of dusky light – junkie - skin too pale, eyes too frantic, twitchy and intense and teeth a little too sharp as she unconsciously rimmed her incisors with a fluttering tongue when she glanced to the bloody activities of others: Vampire. 

It felt a little unsporting to choose her, a women, angsting for a hit, thin to the point of frailty and desperate for attention but, John reminded himself, she was a vampire, skilled in the art of deception and born to feed, hunt, torture and kill and though some part of him secretly wanted a fair fight, by definition meaning one he could lose, he knew this was selfish to the cause.  Dying tonight would accomplish nothing; it was selfish and stupid and he shouldn’t even be here or at least shouldn’t follow through with no back up, with no one knowing where he was or realising what he intended to do.

She caught his eye from across the floor, like some parody of a romance novel, and rose with surprising grace, stalking slowly and sensuously toward him.  Too late.  He couldn’t back out now.  _Time to enter the front line soldier._   He held the eye contact noticing up close for the first time how their eyes seemed to glint and shimmer and schooled his expression into one of seductive confidence, slipping in a little secret smile, wetting his lips and letting his well-worn, sexual imagination, (another remnant from lonely nights in Afghanistan) flush heat to his cheeks and dilate his pupils in seeming hunger.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a firm hand rounded his right bicep and tugged.   _Not out of nowhere, you idiot.  Where was your army training?  You should have noticed the approach_ , he chided himself as he was spun about turn and dragged off toward the private booths, finally registering the figure connected in front of him, a tall, lithe frame, shock of dark curls and the back of an expensive mole-haired coat, dark and dramatic fluttering astride firm purposeful legs.  Without even time for a backward glance at the approaching harpy, he was manhandled into the recess and spun once again so that his back collided with the side panel of wooden mahogany.  A strong grip pinned his shoulders against the support, extorting a hiss as his wound was careless wrenched and then ice-blue eyes, demanding and so breathtakingly alive, were boring into his own.

“Come here often?” a rich, silky baritone purred in boarding school English.

“What…?” Part of John was still formulating a violent seduction back at the bar.

“Trite, I know but clichés have their uses”  The voice sounded flat and somewhat scathing.  The face to which it belonged was a mask of blank intensity, an paradox that shouldn’t have been possible but the pale, smooth flesh danced with a luminosity of energy, the chiselled cheek bones, fierce eyes and incongruously soft, cupid-bow lips waited patiently without expression to be enlivened once more pending his response, undecided as yet, which emotion they would mimic.

John was honest to God throw by this spectre before him, winnowy, erring on the side of unhealthy and yet exuding such strength and knowledge of self that John envied its confidence.  He felt himself swallowing thickly and damn it but the stuttering bob of his Adam’s apple drew that mesmeric gaze down to his neck and it lingered there like a low laser slowly heating the flesh.

His shoulder twinged again as the stranger used it like a lamppost to lean on and John cleared his throat, fixing his eyes to the left, behind the body before him and over to the door.  “No…I…” he licked his lips in a nervous tick, “First time actually.”

“Obvious,” the vampire dismissed.  “Why are you here?”

“Isn’t that _obvious_?”  Slightly less provocative than ‘mind your own fucking business’.  John mentally congratulated himself on his diplomacy.

“Tediously so, both the truth of it and the lie but I want to hear you say it, admit it, just once to yourself, aloud.”  He sounded so reasonable and sure and slightly seductive as if submitting to him wound ease a weary soul.  John glared.

A rakish leg clad in fashionable, suit trousers, edged John’s knees apart with unrestrained force when they sought to buckle closed and suddenly John was angry and fed up with being played and degraded in the eyes of others, be they fellow soldiers, desperate whores or cocky vampires.  With practised skill he thrust his left arm up and out, dislodging the branding grip and momentarily unbalancing the vampire whose weight was on his right.  Bodily he turned into him and fired an elbow into the right kidney, throwing his skull back and connecting with a satisfying crack as his opponent swayed forwards.  He just had time to crouch and trip his assailant before the vampire caught up with the situation and unfortunately didn’t fall as intended but only stumbled a little, regaining his footing and pacing a well-aimed kick to John’s chin, leaving him rocketing backwards where the vampire was on him again, hauling him up, turning and slamming him face first into the wood, hands finding and easily securing a wrist and bending an arm up his back, leaning his weight against the trapped appendage as John bit off a grunt of pain.

Nothing happened for several moments as John stopped struggling and tried to calm his breathing and impulsive rage at once again feeling belittled and beaten.  _He’s a vampire, what had he been thinking?_ Breaths stuttered out of his mouth and gradually the bloody haze faded and he registered the hard lines of a body engulfing his.  There was incongruous moist, warm breathe caressing his ear and the heat of close proximity and in that moment he felt like sobbing, hadn’t realised how deprived of touch he’d been for months, how, even trapped beneath a psychopathic vampire playing with his food, he felt solid, grounded and safe.  This was it, this was the end and all the negative thoughts and feelings of inadequacy and frustration ebbed away and Captain John Watson felt at peace.

The weight on his back must have noticed his calming exhale, the relaxation of tense muscle as he eased back the pressure and spoke with the composed forbearance of a parent to a petulant child, “Are you finished now?”

“Yes,” John exhaled on a quiet breath and thought, _Yes, yes, I’m finished_.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

_What?_ “What?”

The pressure yielded completely now as the vampire moved back, releasing him with an annoyed huff.  “Afghanistan or Iraq, which was it?”

Slowly John turned and saw what was definitely impatience but with a hint of amusement on his tormentor’s face.

The vampire huffed again in derision and obviously decided against repeating himself but instead expounded further.  “Tan lines, not below the wrist, so not sunbathing, somewhere foreign, hot, haircut and that quite impressive display of combat skill says military.  The cane proves injury, though you left it at the bar so largely psychosomatic then, secondary to the wound in your left shoulder, psychosomatic injury implies traumatic circumstances, so wounded in action.  Where would a recently invalided soldier be stationed abroad in active service?  Either Afghanistan or Iraq?”

That was, well, that was surprising and refreshing, no hint of pity or recrimination, just slight curiosity.  “Afghanistan”

“Thought so but it was a hunch, no firm, observational evidence to substantiate.  Now why are you here?”  The intensity in the eyes was back, demanding as audible as the spoken words ‘and don’t lie to me’. He felt like he was being flayed open, exposed and measured and suddenly he cared about the sum of his worth to those mercurial eyes.

“To seduce a vampire”

“And how’s that working out for you?” said vampire smirked.

“Pretty disastrously but it’s early days” he quipped, military bearing returning to his stance but holding at parade rest.

“You want sex?”

“You offering?”

The bastard smirked again.  “You’re too moralistic for even a penchant for danger and an innate curiosity to lure you to the bed of a vampire.  What’s your end game?”

Now it was John who stalked forward predatorily.  If this was the last thing he did he may as well enjoy himself.  He met the vampire’s eyes with a steely determination and a hint of mischievous malevolence.  “Oh, I don’t know.  Perhaps I just want to pin your scrawny ass to a bed and fuck you until you feel something.”

“That’s more like it, closer to the truth.” John almost barked out a laugh at that absurdity but their bodies were so close now, tension in each frame and eyes locked in a battle to the death. 

“Why are you really here?” sounds receded and that voice rolled over him like honeyed syrup.

“To capture a vampire” he goaded.

“Wrong.  You were closer before. Why are you here?” that sumptuous baritone insisted.

John had a fleeting arrogant thought of ‘ _idiot, I’ve just basically told you I’m a part of the resistance’_ until the cold, implacable certainty in those frosty orbs made his brain stutter and stop.

“Why?” the vampire edged closer, hands loosely clasped behind his back but extruding such authority and perverse determination.

“Don’t you know?” an eyebrow quirked.

“I…I just told you.”

“Don’t be moronic and stop lying to yourself.  It’s pathetic watching your tiny human brain trying to maintain its ruse.  Say it?” his voice was still eerily soft but fiercely demanding. 

John felt the room begin to spin on its axis, registered the smell of musty libraries, the sting of potent chemicals and the salty spice of flesh.  All else dimmed, receded back to the darkened den, only this vampire was in sharp define, too sharp, his presence sparked off his skin, his mind tumbling, struggling to curb the overwhelming sensations, to categories and place in order to discount and ignore. 

“You’re a crippled soldier, no hero’s welcome back home, no home back home; everything’s changed and moved on without you.  What use you are?  What do you stand for?  Who do you protect in a society governed by the Godless and ravenously consuming its own putrid detritus so that the stench of sin and malefaction subsumes even the purest of humanity and they revel in it, too gorged to even fight a present evil because this is just, this is atonement, this is vindication, prescience that they never had to fight, to try, to be better, because it’s all worthless.  This is the end but it’ll be slow, torturous, exuding pungent gases of decay 'til the sun is choked by our own fucking repugnance and the stars wink out one by one, not with a bang but a pathetic whimper.  **Why.  Are.  You.  Here**?”

The voice was close.  It circled and spun.  He felt sick, choking on his own ineptitude and feeling, so much feeling, trained to tourniquet it off, cypher it in increments.   His heart clenched in a suddenly restrictive chest and his breathing stuttered.  There wasn’t enough air.  He was panicking because something was there, something was screaming, in the dark, in the desperation, at the very end and beginning of life, something was clawing through and…”Because I want to die…” his knees buckled and hands sought purchase on the only remaining solid form.  Strong fingers gripped back, supported and held.  “No, not just…I can’t just…I want you to kill me.”

He sobbed, horrified at his own words and yet, with sudden clarity, accepting their truth.

“My pleasure,” a wolf-like grin, pupils dilated, cheek bones flushed with arousal, so stimulated, so incontrovertible.  Air whooshed past as they rode it outside, up the steps and down the alley, where overflowing bins blocked any view and now there was brick at John’s back, seeming to sweat in his presence or was that him?  Oh God, just do it, just… pain seized his throat closed on a desperate cry as sinuous fingers grabbed his hair and tugged, exposing his neck and pearly white fangs sank in, in, through skin, through flesh, through vein and it was like there were two holes that were empty, gapping, he was being separated, gouged out.  Numbness and pain radiated from a point that was no longer there, not transmitting as it was supposed to, foreign and growing huge and beautiful so beautiful.  Adrenalin and endorphins surged like old friends breaking dams in his blood where mediocrity had set in and he was alive, so alive and the pain, it wasn’t, it felt good, to actually feel, it was intense and all-consuming and it made him think of war, of sex, of life.  He could actually envisage the pull of blood from his system, the roar of it in his ears beckoned to him like a battle cry, he was home and suddenly he was shoving with all his strength, ripping the teeth from his throat and swinging one hell of a punch.

He watched in slow motion as the vampire sailed backwards landing, half vertical, half prone, against the skip, his body jerking with the impact at unnatural angles as he slumped to the ground and then…began laughing, proper, from the belly guffaws of sheer mirth and for some unknown reason John joined him, laughing like it was a new experience that he’d never indulged in before.

“Now, that’s more like it!” the vampire drawled, spitting blood, probably John’s, to the rank ground.

John stumbled over and slid down to join him.

“What’s your name?”

“John, John Watson.”

“Sherlock Holmes…and I am very sorry John,” and at this the creature, _Sherlock_?, actually did look genuinely remorseful, and foreboding set in, “but you’ve just become interesting.  I must have you.”


	4. Highway to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood loss is a bitch and John appears to be going home with Vampire Sherlock. Luckily he's too out-of-it to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a chapter bridge - sorry! but I think it flows better like this. Thank you so much for all the feedback. I was really worried about the last chapter and so glad you enjoyed it.

Chapter 4

There was a screech of tyres coming to an abrupt halt at the end of the alley.  It was a shiny black car, expensive, buffed and polished, wisps of stream in fine tendrils ghosting from the bonnet before breaking off into the air, adding macabre drama.  It was drizzling slightly and the temperature had dropped but John hadn’t even noticed.

“Our ride is here.” Holmes muttered with a hint of exasperation but a quick half smile as he fluidly curved to his feet, dabbing absently at the blood that dried quickly on his full lips.

“You have got to be kidding me?” John squeaked, rolling his head against the bin with a soft, metallic drag and a half huff of a laugh escaping as if trapped, late to the show and voicing its protestations. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”  His voice sounded odd even to his own ears, determined military inflexion somewhat hollow and slurred.  His left hand and arm jerked, not tremors, more like pins and needles and his head was pounding like someone was banging on his grave but he was suddenly too tired to care.

“I think you’ll find you are.  Willing or…” At once the sharp cut of tailored shadow loomed over him, the threat cut off, too crass to voice in such an accent but crystal clear like the eyes which even now probed at the skin, through it, beyond, inside, tearing but stitching something lost back in. 

For a moment all sense of circumstance and memory drained and became as pale as the translucent flesh of the face, half clouded in darkness and yet doubly defined.  God he was…what?…beautiful was too, too common and easily misspoken; radiant like a dark star, less pure and yet less diluted, there was no pretence in that gaze, neither expectation nor censure, he was…an anathema and a most interesting way to die or even to live.  “You’re…”

The thought was never finished as a quick reflex secured and lifted the anaemic soldier as if he were but a soft toy, dragged by possessive hands through puddles of dirt, grass stains and school yards until the hand grew up and put anyway childish things.  John should’ve ground his heels in, tried to turn, move away but some part of him knew such efforts were senseless and he was determined to muster enough dignity to at least parody walking alongside as opposed to be dragged behind.  He would hold his head high, if his neck didn’t seem to be made of bubble wrap, and face his fate with the courage of someone who has lived with death on his back.

A man stepped out of the front driver’s side and hastened to the back passenger door, opening it with his body, swinging outward like the handle was but a mime and John realised, with embarrassment, that he was giggling again but the man could have stepped straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, so much did he scream ‘chauffeur for posh-assed, lazy folk’.

Sherlock, that was his name wasn’t it? Strange name, strange man…vampire, ushered John, face first, into the plush, leather material, complete with ‘new car’ smell and not from an air freshener, and contorted his lanky frame in behind.  John found himself being hoisted up, turned and seated in an approximation of comfort, like a photographer’s puppet. 

The chauffeur was back behind the wheel now and a black glass panel slid smoothly down with an electric whir.

“Baker Street, on the double!” Sherlock instructed.

“Sorry m’lord but I have my instructions”, the hat-topped head swivelled toward the rear-view mirror and gave a grimace/shrug.

“Augh, Dull,” came the laconic reply.

“Nice try though m’lord!” the driver smirked.

“That was not trying.  When I try I succeed!”

“God, you’re arrogant.”  _Good contribution John.  Say what you see!_

Hawk eyes swivelled to face him, seemingly haven’t forgotten he was even there and valiantly John tried to straighten his head which seemed to be listing off to the right and making friends with the window pane.

“You wound me!” The fucker actually pouted but it was gone in an instant and John tried to make a mental note in capital, red neon, letters – “NOT human – VAMPIRE”

“Was just making an observation.” And oh great the car turned a corner and John’s head sidled along for the ride, bumping off a slightly damp, woollen shoulder.

“No, you were stating the obvious.  Though for the less than agile mind that’s synonymous with the height of deduction.”

“Where are we going?”

“Prison.” He groused.

“You don’t want me as a captive.”

“Who said you were the prisoner?”

John doesn’t remember much else, though he thinks he felt gravity or firm hands pull him more horizontal and a scratch of fabric beneath his cheek as he briskly lost consciousness.


	5. A broken toy is as good as a dead one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Mycroft Manor and John's new home, though he's not done fighting yet!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late! Things are chaotic at the moment! I'm house hunting and trying to write essays for college at the same time and basically its stress city! Ah well! Gulping down copious amount of fanfic is my favourite medicine. Hope my own contribution isn't too bad! Thanks so much again for all your lovely comments and kudos they're vast becoming my own 7% solution!!!

Chapter 5

He awoke when the rocking cadence of motion ceased to the gentle thrum of an engine idlying like a stubborn babe realising the trick and stirring to bawl once more.  Solid form slipped out from under him and his head bounced off something soft and musky which roused him further.  His skull felt like the inside of bagpipes at the Edinburgh Tattoo and he began to panic. Obviously hadn’t made it home from whatever dive he’d stumbled upon.  Soft interior lights sent, somewhat dulled, needles through his sockets.  Taxi then.  Good that meant a bed was nearby.

“Hurry up, John!”

He froze instinctively as if a pistol was thrust behind his gummy eyes, his mind speeding through connections informing him of why he knew that voice.  Flight or fight then?  He didn’t feel in much state to do either, so humour the psycho and hope he’d had enough to drink and didn’t want desert.  He was even not thinking about the possible connotations of that word.  He’d bide his time, misdirect and obfuscate until he was feeling less like a train wreak and could make a move.

Hauling himself out of the car the first thing he saw was floodlit cobble stones, rain dampened and gleaming, then the derrière of that infamous black coat and then beyond to a stone bricked building straight out of one of those BBC dramas, ex-girlfriends had gushed over.  It appeared white or dove-grey, a neo-classical country mansion, great iconic pillars (four) forming the front portico, with ornate balustrade above and carved wooden doors below.  Stone steps lead to the entrance, wider than most home decking and with twisted open rails framing them.  They culminated in vast cylindrical posts capped by rot iron and frosted glass lamps, flicking in the shape of flames. 

Glancing back John couldn’t see the end of the driveway and the neatly trimmed grass dissolved to blackness just as a gnarled lattice of branches began to crawl up from the earth.  Tired as he may be, the soldier instinct straightened his posture but could not conceal the open look of awe and trepidation.

A huff of breath drew his attention back to the lean bean-pole in front of him.  “Boring.  I thought soldiers weren’t dazzled by material possessions?”

“Most of us lowly folk fighting for Queen and Country don’t expect to ever wind up in the palace grounds,” he re-joined.

“Mycroft may be a queen but the monarchy are far too sedate and honorary in their power to interest his career plans.  Come.”

He wasn’t manhandled, he merely walked unaided and with as much baldy confidence as he could conjure, along rich, dark wood floors or oriental rugs, past gilt-framed portraits and antique dressers bedecked with fresh-cut flowers, up plush-carpeted stairways, sprawling wide enough for an entourage and through marble tiled rooms, with weighty drapes and regal fleur-de-lis paper, corridors unending and doors peppering the high-ceilinged walls.  After several moments of heading upwards and East they came to an archway boosting a stone, spiralled staircase beyond that lead down and down and down like a journey through the centre of the earth until finally they reached a door, pushed carelessly ajar and containing rooms which vomited splendour but also a deafening cacophony of miscellaneous mayhem.  There were spokes of a, was that a penny farthing?, constructed into some kind of weather station, a sextant half buried under a Japanese Noh mask, half an engine of indiscriminant origin, an old bar keg that John doubted very much held beer, numerous flasks, beakers and rainbow coloured chemicals, microscope, a headless shop dummy, a dead owl, a cross bow straight out of Sherwood Forest, oh and a skull, sockets writhing in the glow of a roaring fire in the tiled, black hearth. 

Sherlock had stripped off his outerwear looking perfectly at home in this Aladdin’s cave, peering curiously at a line of petri dishes before flitting over to the vast, four-poster bed and bouncing slightly as he reached over to snag a laptop from the floor.

“You may undress,” came the imperious tone and with it, John’s sense of presence.

“Excuse me?” Shock was riding after shock but anger was bubbling someplace forbidden below and he was finally remembering to undo the latch.

“That ghastly jumper is covered in blood; you may want to remove it.” Issued the clipped reply.

Oh, okay, yeah, that made sense.

“Don’t bother stopping there.  Your bed is through that door and no doubt there will be a uniform in your size atop it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh I do hate repetition something which you seem fond of.  Door.  Bed.  Clothes.  Take off.  Put on.  Now!” he stood gesturing with the precision of long, graceful fingers to what looked like a hatch to an airing cupboard over by a floor to ceiling bookcase, crammed full and overflowing.

“Now wait a minute.  You can’t just…” John was rudely cut-off before the steam he was working up could ever boil over.

“I can and I will.  You will not resist me.” That deep rumble was more impatient and petulant than angry, yet.

“I can and I will” John parroted, letting his hands form loose fists, widening his stance and relaxing his limbs.  He may not be a vampire but he would posture his gaze was fierce, unblinking and directed at a bony aristocrat who seemed even slighter without his many layers of padding.

In an instant Sherlock was on him and shoving him back against a wall, arm barring his chest.  John was more surprised that there was wall space and he hadn’t tripped over anything than at the bullying behaviour.  Cocked head and gimlet eyes interrogated, “I thought you’d chosen life?”

“Life as some entitled reptiles slave is not living.” He ground out between clenched teeth.

“Mammal John!  Even warm-blooded, some of the time.  Do your research.”

He was so close and his firm grip seemed incidental, completely effortless as John’s muscles shook and spasmed with all their might just to stop it going straight through him.

“How then?” he rasped.

“How…what?” John blinked.

“How do you want to die?” The last said but a few centimetres from his face, breathe biting out in total disgust.

Quick as a bullet a hand flew out and grabbed John’s hair, levering his head back.  Alive so alive, he panted.  Its compatriot rose to his throat brandishing a blade from god knows where.  The cool metal tickled his skin and sent Goosebumps blooming from its edge.  “This at least would be quick.  If I slice both carotids and the jugulars, brain death will occur in seconds.  How’s your blood pressure John?  How far do you think you’d…spurt?” the last squeezed out in hungry onomatopoeia next to a tingling ear.  John shivered.

“Or how about…” John sucked in a burning breathe as the knife clattered to the floor and the wide arch of a warm palm moulded to this throat and squeezed, “…asphyxiation, manual, direct pressure on the trachea.  Rather painless but oh so personal.” The voice, like an oceans undercurrent to the sudden rush in his ears, purred.  Soft lips and wet tongue drew over his jaw, feeling out the contours, inhaling the sweat and tasting his reaction.  Suffocated in the scent, the heat, the feel of a prison of flesh, so strong, so close and his neurons firing, screaming, panicking as blood pooled and God, no, he could feel the gentle swell, the insistent heat, the extreme of sensation, everything heightened, everything rushing in but breathe. 

The hand vanished, both of them now bracing on either side of John’s head as he slumped against the wall and gulped lungfuls into re-animating lungs.  “I know hundreds of modes of death,” a whisper, almost like a secret, against the shell of an ear, “But you didn’t really think it would be merciful, did you?  I could flay your skin from your bones, cut slices exposing muscle and sinew for days, weeks.  How long do you think it would take me to skin you, John?  Shall we find out?” John shivered, every reflex being totally fucking useless as apparently they were recommending the best course of action to be hyperventilating into a sobbing, heaving lump at ‘his master’s’ feet.

_He’s just one man, John.  He can’t have that kind of power over you unless you let him._

“You won’t kill me?” and his voice didn’t shake, it sounded almost enlightened, a few notches down from smug _.  Good John, call his bluff.  God knows what he’s done to others in the past but think what you’ve done John, you went to war for fuck’s sake.  You’re dangerous.  You’re deadly.  He’s an enemy combatant and he’s underestimating you.  Big mistake_.

“Oh and why’s that?” the deep timbre was amused, challenging.

“I’m interesting and you’ve only just found me.”

“True and still standing, impressive.”

Sherlock swooped away, immediately at the other side of the room, fingering the skull thoughtfully.

“Of course.  I don’t need to kill you.  It’d be much more fun to break you slowly.” He genuinely seemed to be contemplating this but as one considering adding full fat or skimmed milk to the shopping list.

“Not going to happen.” John pushed off the wall, standing straight.

The bastard laughed then, “You think you can’t be broken?”

“Every man has his limit.” John held his gaze, strong, assured and fearsome in his own right.

“What’s to stop me from finding yours?”

‘ _Me! You fucker!_ ’ he wanted to scream but the power of the man was impossible and John wasn’t gung-ho but practical.  _Pick your battles._   “You are.”  He voiced with confidence.  “Because you don’t want some mindless drone hanging on your every word.  That would be boring.”

Finally replacing the skull, Sherlock turned to him fully, eyes shining with a surprised smile gracing his aquiline features.  He seemed to take the measure of the short, compact and proud being before him before smiling once again, this time congenially.  “What are your views on Marmite?  I hear _ordinary people_ can become quite passionate in their endorsement or revulsion of it.”

“What?” John spurted, gone was the demon incarnate and in its place stood the magnetic, mystery of a man that had beguiled him before.

“Food, John.  You need sustenance.  I drank less than a litre but I’m sure you’re feeling it.  No point in fighting me when you’re handicapped, save your strength.  Your room is there.  I will have food brought down to you.”

And with that John seemed to be dismissed as Sherlock plucked up the laptop once again and quickly became engrossed in whatever arrogant, insufferable vampires surfed on the net, perhaps arrogant insufferable vampire porn?  So john crossed the room to open the door.

“John?” 

He stuttered to a stop as if on a string plucked by a villainous puppet-master.

“You will submit to me, one way or the other but you’re right, a broken toy is as good as a dead one.  Keep that in mind.”

Fighting down a retort and a shudder, John crossed the threshold to his new home.


	6. Whisper above the Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John awakens to his new world and glimpses yet another side to his tormentor. Enter the consulting VAMPIRE detective!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late! Unfortunately life is majorly encroaching at the moment, end of year exams, house hunting etc so I might not get a chance to update as regularly for a couple of months but I will be back!!! The thing I love most about AUs is when they also stay in character so I had to get my case head on so John can see that Sherlock is no regular vampire! Next chapter will get nasty though. Torture warnings! So nervous about writing that...anyway! Enjoy this installment and thanks so much for all your continued support and encouragement! The title is from Owl City's 'To the Sky' and is meant to represent seeing new layers, revelations and also the tempestuous nature of the whirlwind that is Sherlock Holmes as well as referencing the case discussion.

Chapter 6.

 _His room_ was more of a cement box.  A rusted, rot-iron hospital cot took up almost the entire space, with a sloped ceiling that had even John, with his 5ft 6inch stature, bending low against the exposed brick ceiling.  There was a bare bulb protruding from the wall, a thin mattress, more like a yoga mat, scratchy woollen blanket and yes, a ‘uniform’ resting on top of it.  Pulling the door closed behind him was an extremely awkward manoeuver where fingers tugged on the handle, knees couldn’t bend as shins were flush with the metal framed bed, back curved in lieu of the ceiling and butt jutted out bouncing the door back out again – tuck bum, straighten arm and twist torso, finally it latched and locked in place behind the contorted giant in a scantly furnished dollhouse.  He huffed a hysterical laugh and reached to examine the offering of clothes, half falling on the bed as the only available space.  Plain black cotton trousers, black priest socks, black walking boots and, no surprises here, a black button-down shirt.  No underwear.  Fan-fucking-tastic!

Fuck it!  He was too drained to care.  He peeled off his former life just leaving on the white vest and ridiculous novelty boxer shorts – “love doctor!” in red with a ‘red cross’!  Harry should be shot though it was him that forgot to do his laundry.  ([Wanna see these?](http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/love-doctor-funny-boxer-shorts.html?gclid=CL6d7PCSxbUCFW_KtAod93wA5w#utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=free&utm_term=Funny+Boxers+-+Love+Doctor)[) ](http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/love-doctor-funny-boxer-shorts.html?gclid=CL6d7PCSxbUCFW_KtAod93wA5w#utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=free&utm_term=Funny+Boxers+-+Love+Doctor)He crawled onto the cot, face first, not sure whether it was him or the deadened springs that groaned pathetically and almost delirious by this point, fell asleep.

When he next awoke his body left like it’d been stagnating on a metal slab in a morgue for days.  Instinctively he reached for his chest expecting a ‘y-incision’ but only finding sore muscle that had been moulded flat and was chilled as if his hand rested against some slimy, subterranean wall.  He shivered violently.  It had been warm enough last night with the trapped thermal energy from the blazing fire but even though the room was small it obviously leaked heat, a draft stirring the hairs on his nape from gaps in cracked plaster.  

He realised he had no idea what time it was, the buzz of the tungsten bulb unending, and shifted to glare over his shoulder at it.  On the end of the bed was a plate with cold toast and marmite and a glass of water rested on the floor.  Better than nothing!  He knew the first rule of hostage situations was not to eat or drink anything the bastards provided but he’s weak, sore and blood depleted and Sherlock’s unlikely to have sprinkled Racine over his meagre meal.  Not dramatic enough.  And God how he hated that he already knew that the wanker would probably prefer some elaborate, medieval, torture contraption to poisoning or blunt force trauma _. ‘How do you want to die?’ Would, from happiness under a beautiful woman on a deck chair in the Bahamas when I’m eighty, be construed as a ‘slow and painful death’ to the lanky git? – Possibly, for HIM anyway!_

Just as he was contemplating all sorts of grievous bodily harm on said git, John realised he had a more pressing matter in the bladder department so he rolled over the arm’s length it took to get to the door and pushed.  Nothing.  Was Sherlock even out there?  Did he have a nice coffin somewhere?  The egregious bed had hardly looked slept in.  

Damnit John had been so calm, so regimental about his situation even though he was freezing, his muscles ached, his neck throbbed and his guts felt taunt and spasmy.  He was a soldier and would not panic and really this was the most stimulating thing to happen to him since he’d been shot but bloody heck he was not going to beg a sadistic vampire to let him pee!

A cold sweat flushed his forehead as he contemplated what awaited him outside his cupboard door.  He was still too wrecked to fight.  What if Sherlock wanted another tipple?  He couldn’t possibly hope to refill his veins quick enough to make it past breakfast, maybe lunch?  What if he wanted something else?  John was all too familiar with pain.  It was a two-faced friend in the dessert, reminding him he was still alive whilst slowing his reflexes and chances to live.  Pain became a mark of honour, of strength; muscles pulled but he pushed, he bleed but he breathed, he fell but he fought and now would be no different.  Except it was.  There were no comrades at his back, no half-heroes, half-fools vehement that they’d never leave a man behind, that today, no one would die, not even a friendly neighbourhood sniper to end his pain quickly and strew poppies in the dust.  When would this end?

Oh the vampire doesn’t want him broken but how can John yield to him.  He remembers Bill Murray talking about a soldier he was treating, a young lad from Arkansas; he’d been listed as missing in action for three weeks until a routine patrol stumbled upon an enemy base, well more of a battered hovel, recently abandoned and sporting their missing man.  He’d later told Bill how he’d been captured, restrained, helpless; how he’d battled with the enemy’s dogs for food and a fellow soldier for water, a fellow soldier who died after six days.  He said that if the will is strong enough you will do anything you have to, to stay alive.  What would John endure?  What deprived torturers would be inflicted upon his mind and his body?  Would be beg?  _What would you do to stay alive, John?_   

He contemplated submitting to the monster just to spite him.  He’d only be providing entertainment if he struggled against him and he didn’t want to give the bastard the satisfaction but he knew he couldn’t; he knew he was bloody-minded and stubborn and he couldn’t ‘do anything to stay alive’ which meant him living as someone else.

He’d keep calm, not let the vampire crack him.  Vampires may be strong but they’ve never had to be strong, not like John has.  He’d wait him out, not act impulsively but only when he was sure he’d have a chance at escape, to do otherwise would only make it near impossible in the future.   He was still a man; still had the freedom to choose, even if it was between hell and fire and right now he chose to stoically ask, no demand, he be allowed to relieve himself rather than face the pointless indignity of soiling his only sanctuary.

He donned his 'uniform' and banged on the door.

He could hear harried footsteps beyond, pacing.  He wasn’t alone.

He banged again with authority, if a knock could imbue it.

“What?” a familiar voice bellowed followed by an almost inaudible, “Oh!”

The lock slid and the door opened to a garble of words and a retreating form wearing what looked like ratty pyjama bottoms, a grubby t-shirt and ridiculous silken robe.  “Of course!  He simply forgot to let her out!”

“John!” the madman spun, a crazed look in those piercing eyes.

“Why would you drag a poorly mobile woman, of aging years, from her bed, across the landing and down a flight of stairs; place a kitchen chair in the under-stair closet and shut her in, wedging a phone table in front and then go back upstairs to rob a safe?”

“I wouldn’t.”

Sherlock flicked his eyes upward meeting John’s bewildered face and frowned in annoyance, the expression so exaggerated it was almost comical.

“Of course YOU wouldn’t.  That’s not the point.” He spat, flopping on the bed and slamming his spindly arms down in an over-the-top, bouncy huff!

“There’s a point?” For a moment John just gazed at him trying to figure out what twilight zone he’d wondered into that was even weirder than being captured food to a psychotic vampire, stored in his very own chilled pantry.  Even more strangely, he didn’t seem that psychotic right now, crazy yes, but in a kind of ‘the boys at school stole my lunch money and I don’t know what to do’ way, with his ruffled hair and gormless expression of concentration, he looked absurdly young and John had to fight down the impulse to go over and pat his head with a ‘there, there’!

“You’ve staked the place out.  Know that the husband’s at work in his boring office and the wife’s at her boring palates class so you know the mother is in.  Why not smother her with a pillow, dose her with chloroform, whack her over the head with her Zimmer-frame, ah but you didn’t want her dead.  Just forgot to let her out again or were interrupted and had no time.  Harmless old lady.  You’re not a murderer.  You’re a thief.  A good one too.  You’ve watched the family, probably even called at their door the day before, leaving the sellotape over the lock.  You know what you’re doing so why go to all that bother, moving, transporting, and locking her in?  It doesn’t make sense.”

The vampire was on his feet again, gesticulating wildly, eyes getting narrower and hand scrubbing at his scalp as if he could shake the answer loose.  He was completely oblivious, glazed, not entirely there, seeing somewhere else, some other scene.  John could have cracked that stupid skull over _his_ skull and run for it but he was too befuddled to even remember why he was jiggling slightly with his legs crossed.  He was enthralled.  The miscellaneous ramble of a story was interesting.  The puzzle fascinating.

“Maybe they didn’t.”

Sherlock almost jumped at his voice, stopped, spun, pointed at him with an accompanying grimace of the lips, “Stop talking, stop thinking, stop breathing!”  He turned to pace again then stopped, “Didn’t what?”  His eyes were bright and focused entirely on John who’d gone from a ‘only trying to help’ shrug to a insulted glower, though was somehow smiling a little as well.

“Didn’t force the old woman down the stairs and into the closet.  Maybe she was already there.”

The vampire looked like he’d been smacked in the face with a wet fish.  “Why on earth would an ELDERLY woman who needs a stair lift suddenly decide to leave her bed and go for a stroll to sit under the bleedin’ stairs?”

“Maybe there was a thunder storm.  I don’t know.” _Quit yelling at me, I’m not the one not making any sense!_

“How’d you know there was a storm?”

“I didn’t.”  And the look of confusion on that pale, sculpted face seemed as completely foreign as pigs with umbrellas or ducks with galoshes.

“Then how…?”

“Had a Granny who fled under the stairs, with a blanket, torch and the dog every time she saw lightning.  Of course she’d unplug all the electrics and keep clear of all the windows on her way.  Though in fairness she was almost struck by lightning when it hit the outside pipes, travelling along the indoor taps and bounced off a knife she was washing in the sink once.”

Sherlock scrutinized him like he was looking for flaws in a diamond before letting out a triumphant “Ha!” and literally jumping for joy.  John didn’t know anyone actually did that.  Then the man-child was running at him and grabbing his face between too inhumanly long palms. “You’re a genus, John!”  He spun away.  “It was the son.  Obvious.  The tear in his clothes, six-month old suit.  His business was failing and judging by the kinky lingerie, the pack of condoms in the bathroom cabinet and of course the fact that his mother was sleeping in the marital bed, she was going to divorce him so he planned to steal the diamonds so she couldn’t get her hands on the money even though they were technically hers to begin with.  Only the son or daughter-in-law would know the mother’s storm ritual.  He could sneak in and out without the old bat knowing, it was opportunistic.  But he paused to barricade her in just to make doubly sure she couldn’t identify the culprit!”

“That’s brilliant!  I…mean, God that poor woman.”

Sherlock was grinning from ear to ear.  The smile completely transformed his face into someone so full of joy and childish wonder.  John couldn’t help the answering smile and look of awe.

“You think I’m brilliant?”  The man stepped closer.

“Well…I…” John flushed and rubbed bashfully at the back of his neck but who was he kidding, “That was extraordinary!”

They stood like that for a few moments, each smiling appreciatively at the other, connected like they’d just run a race together or bested some mythical foe until John remembered just where he was and just who he was with.  “Hmmm….bathroom?”

Immediately the vampires face shifted to its customary blank mask and he turned away, “En-suite’s through the door beside the bed.”

John hastened to comply as Sherlock plucked an iPhone out of his pocket with a flick of the wrist and began furiously texting.


	7. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A busy chapter as John contemplates his situation, 'Big Brother' makes a cameo appearance and the suggestion of much anguish to come arrives in a dingy, secret vault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was supposed to be studying! Oops! Hope you enjoy the new installment. It turned out a little darker than I anticipated, I'm as mercurial as Sherlock himself in my writing it seems! This is the lead up for the warnings in the tags so be warned. Thanks as ever for the amazing feedback, it really spurs me on and away from textbooks and essays! Oops again! The title is from Dante's Inferno - the inscription on the gates on hell! Cheery thought!

Chapter 7.

John went through his morning ablutions, trying to figure out what had just happened and then treated himself to a shower when no banging came on the door because really, his actions weren’t likely to either help or hinder whatever the vampire already had planned for him.  On his return Sherlock was perched on a stool before a high table and peering through a microscope.  He looked every bit the absent-minded professor with a pair of safety goggles nestled into the top of his mop of riotous curls and methodical fingers, searching and placing glass slides without a glance.

There was a plate of toast with marmite and a cup of milk sitting on the bedside table by the bathroom door which John glanced at warily and then reached for with resigned acceptance.  It was completely inappropriate to sit on the bed so he cleared an armchair of books and papers, sitting down beside the fire and opposite the workbench.

“I don’t actually like marmite,” he offered through a chewful.

“I DID ask,” the brisk voice intoned, eyes still pinned to its specimen as John squirmed slightly in sympathy.

“Yeah, sorry.  More of a jam man really.” How surreal was his life?  His great tormentor perched still as a statue or incongruously handsome gargoyle while he attempted small talk with the brusque and officious murder machine. 

“So the son?  That robbery/murder or was it manslaughter?  Was that hypothetical or…?”

“Or…?” the vampire huffed impatiently.

“Well…real?”  God this was awkward and why was he even bothering.  It wasn’t as if he actually wanted to get to know the creep just…there was something about him that made him curious, expectant almost.  This cosy chinwag felt like the establishing scene in some suspenseful thriller or perhaps horror, depending on what the miscreant director had planned.  He hated not knowing where he stood.  What version of the man before him was likely to come out and play at any given moment. 

“Of course it was REAL.  Otherwise why bother?” he scathed.

The vampire was about as approachable as a primary school teacher dressed in a ‘big-bad-wolf’ costume and carrying the huntsman’s axe.  And really when all that’s at the forefront of your mind are huge, life-altering questions like, _‘Am I going to live through the night/day, whichever this is?’_ or _‘So I was thinking, some conventional physical violence, playing with stress positions or perhaps you want to go for a theme? Chinese water torture, mixing it up with a bit of water boarding?’_ or perhaps worse still, _‘So I’ve heard that a Vampire’s slave fulfils ALL their needs?  Were you…erm…planning to…?’_ well let’s just say it’s rather hard to think of mundane small talk.  Everything really seems rather trivial and pointless when you’re waiting with baited breathe for the worm to turn.  Although perhaps this waiting game is just some form of psychological torture.  Is the engrossed scientist thing and pungent chemicals just play-acting, setting the scene to stoke some horrific associations in the imagination or develop a false sense of security, although that usually involves normalcy and none of this is normal?  _What does he want from me?  I need to know in case I’m accidently giving it to him._

“So, you…em…you solve murders often?”

“A lot more often than the idiots at Scotland Yard.  It’s the work, John.”

“You work?” John was not expecting that.  Vampires had no reason to do anything they didn’t want to do so maybe this one wanted to work?  Play at detective?  Well he certainly seemed exuberant in the throes of a case and John had to admit he at least sounded convincing.

“Oh course I work.  The work is all that matters.”  And with that enigmatic statement and a glare from the scientist that seemed to say, ‘speak again and I blow your head up with my massive brain’, silence once again fell between them.  Curiously enough it wasn’t even a completely uncomfortable silence although John’s brain still whirled.  But it was obvious there was no urgency to speak, the opposite in fact and Sherlock seemed so completely absorbed in whatever he was doing and so natural in his doing of it that John felt some of the pressure lift.  _Is this what he wants?_ Even with these increasingly worrisome thoughts John felt somewhat guilty for questioning the vampire.  From the very beginning his complete lack of guile or pretence had made him seem like one of the most human humans John had ever encountered and he certainly wasn’t shy about speaking his mind or demanding some action or other so maybe, yes, this was it?  Face value?  With this face anyway.

Just when he was beginning to settle there was a brisk knock at the lumbering door, too sharp and too loud through the inches of old wood to be knuckles, somehow metallic.

The visitor didn’t wait for an invite, although the primary occupant slammed a beaker on the wood grains and groaned in annoyance as the door swung slowly and ominously open, revealing first and foremost a polished umbrella tip, prodding the frame further and slipping through.

The hand that wielded it was attached to a pristinely dressed person of obvious vampire origin.  Glancing surreptitiously, so as not to make eye contact with yet another fearsome creature, John wondered at how the human race had ever truly been fooled.  _I guess we really do see just what we want to see._   For this man was the embodied of restrained power.  The falsely obsequious, expensive and clearly bespoke, three-piece suit in warm browns and pin-striped beige spoke of authority to the lower classes and urged them not to stare and persuaded the higher classes to discount the man as a boring bureaucrat.  He was tall, a raised nose and chin screaming of aristocracy, with a calculating gaze and perpetually unamused expression. 

John sat rooted to the plush regency cushion, his attention on this new, unknown entity, even as a snarled baritone named him.  “Go away, Mycroft!”  Mycroft’s eyes flickered with efficient, minimal effort about the room and John’s own person before dismissing him completely to settle on Sherlock with a grimace, who was looking murderous and barely contained.

“Isn’t this cosy?” a cultured voice grated.  “One would assume to trespassing upon a drawing-room skit of Wilde’s were it not for the pallor of your brave soldier and his exit-assessing eyes.  A patriot, really Sherlock?  Do I have to remind you these toys tend to come with in-built tactical and weapons training?  He seems rather unscathed?  Do I also have to remind you that you are a VAMPPIRE?” the mild-mannered tone still threatened.

Sherlock merely raised a chin and glared daggers, more than daggers, there was quite possibly a minor infantry behind them, perhaps a few cavalry men.

Mycroft summoned a disappointed and put-upon sigh before barking, “Get it done, Sherlock or my enforced hospitality may become indefinite.” And with that final warning he executed a laisez-a-faire about turn and stalked away, not resorting to anything so vulgar as banging the door.  John could only stare befuddled in his wake until a clatter and crash of metal and glass had him off the seat and crouching at the ready while he quickly surveyed the broken beakers, test-tubes, tin trays and miscellanea that so abruptly littered the floor as to think the inanimate objects suddenly became overcome with a suicidal depression.

Sherlock was once again prowling like some crazed, caged creature, eyes alighting on a hundred things at once before dismissing them as inconsequential, that is, until they snapped to meet John’s own.  With a curled lip and forcible exhaled snort through the nose he spoke, “Follow!”

_Like hell!_ John would have thought if he were capable of thinking anything at that moment, reeling as he was from the rapid shift in atmosphere like a sudden drop in cabin pressure, blurring swimming vision and dizzying the head.

Sherlock turned and stormed away.  At first John thought he was going to his ‘room’ but he stopped at the bookcase beside it and reached for a VHS of Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ of all things, so out of place amid the intellectual tomes, files and folders.  An earthly groan sounded, rumbling as if from under the floorboards followed by a nauseating grinding as the bookcase shuddered forward exhausted inch by exhausted inch.  The vampire reached through the opening crack and withdrew a taught belt which he tugged on, thrusting his whole body backwards and causing the ingress to accelerate.  Obviously whatever pulley system employed was designed to push the weight of a false or at least regular bookcase but this one was far too well used.

There was nothing but darkness beyond and John shivered in an errant draft watching as dust motes quick-stepped in loose circles about the opening like fireflies trying to gain access and bring light. 

“John, this is the last time I will repeat myself.  Follow me, now.”

The man’s gaze was fierce and untempered.  It was like looking upon a hound of hell and knowing that it was loose and oh so very capable of devouring you whole.  There was no give, no leeway and John’s feet started moving of their own accord although they did falter not this time out of defiance, although John would claim otherwise, but out of genuine fear and confusion.

A sharp eyebrow rose as leg muscles ground to a halt, quickly succeeded by a frustrated growl.  “I thought we’d been through this.  Pride notoriously comes before a fall John Watson.  Do we really need another practical demonstration?  Of course I’d be happy to oblige if such encounters weren’t so insipidly boring and mind-numbingly predictable.”  The words were spat out with disgust and never had John seen the vampire so close to shattering that polished veneer.  He didn’t kid himself that he would last a second against that destructive rage.

Surrender was survival at this point and John hastened to obey.  The incongruously soft and satiny wings of the blue dressing gown disappeared into the hidden depths and he could do nothing but follow.  Somewhere deep within he prided himself that he was capable of even that as every instinct was to run, to flee and ultimately, he knew, to die. 

He couldn’t even see the shadow of the man before him but he heard the small scrape against metal, the drag and catch of a matchstick that abruptly revealed a pinched face as an elegant arm swept upwards and lit on a medieval, oil soaked torch.  Cold stone walls flickered to life, flames licking erratically off uneven bricks that diffracted and tossed the light in eerie angles.  Looking down the ground was hard and surprisingly ornate.  Dusty and forgotten as it was, a structured tiled mosaic could be discerned in faded white and terracotta.  The whitish cubes seemed to hold the odd flecks of silver and glistened in their spirals and simple rosettes while the terracotta offset the pattern and held many hues from brilliant orange to a dusky blacked burgundy. 

The further they walked in silence, the colder it became and the walls darkened at their base seeming slick with moisture and fragranced with damp.  They passed many wall-mounted torches and alcoves, some of which must have led to further corridors or rooms as the sound of their footsteps changed in echo until Sherlock veered to the right and stopped to open a very sturdy but plain looking door. 

Within was the stuff of nightmares.  Sherlock quickly glanced the flames off more torches that lined a huge circular room.  The concrete floor was slightly sloped down to a drain in the middle and a steel table sat above it.  Around this feature, sometimes half hidden behind stone supports, was everything any sick psychopath could possibly desire.  Some of the instruments of torture were familiar to John, at least by reputation or from macabre history lessons at school which the young boys loved for their bloodthirsty horror and the effect they had on the squeamish and mock retching girls.  They spoke of ancient outlaws and brave heroes, cackling villains and corrupt kings.  But this was no gory horror movie, these lay in wait for real men, men like John. 

His stomach knotted and almost emptied itself on association alone.  A crude St. Andrew’s cross caught the eye where the light glinted off the manacles that hung upon it.  The density of shadow in a far recess only just failed to disguise a wooden rack and broad leather restraints.  Stagnant water pooled in a carved out hollow, the colour sickly brown, with an incongruously modern silver tap gleaming from a rusted vertical pipe.  Benches and hooks were burdened with whips, chains, wooden bats, knives and surgical tools, some antique, some strikingly polished and new.  Everything stank of dried blood with musty remnants of disinfectant trying to overpower it. 

There were too many contraptions to name, a spiked sarcophagus (iron maiden), a Judas chair, a tucker telephone and metal bed to secure its victims, pillories, numerous chains, ropes and pulleys, gruesome antique wooden chairs fitted with blades, garrottes or sometimes seatless.  It was a museum of pain, ‘bloody’ well equipped along with real blood stains and that was it, as a doctor, as a human being ablaze with compassion and the want, no, the physical aching need, to end suffering, John balked.  He doubled over, pain slicing through his nerves as his knees crashed to the floor.  His body shook in a cold fever, as sweat beaded and fell, splashing in miniscule droplets off the floor as he wondered what ancient tears they stirred in the plaster.  His head pounded and vision blurred as tortured cries from his own war memories materialised and swamped the place around him along with so many imagined screams and pleads for mercy from beings striped of everything, like Pandora’s box but holding to that one faint shimmer of hope that this torture might end.  Did the seemingly unaffected vampire who was currently scrutinising his every laboured breathe, rejoice in their pain; laugh as their childish innocence and belief in the human heart and conscience drowned in agony?  Did he jerk off, lubed by their tears and rendered feverish by his power over their fragile forms?  Would John beg?  Would he, like a fool, hold onto meagre hope? 

Against conscious will his body bucked and wretched, mangled bread and marmite, a last meal?, adding to a history of stains.  And he hated how exposed he was, how vulnerable, how weak and they hadn’t even begun.  A man who had stood straight, spattered with his comrades blood and tissue and calmly issued orders to prolong life; a man who’d once lain still in a muddy ditch, covered by the lifeless body of another  
until shouts and blasts receded and he dove to assist once more.  This is it, this is the bottom of the pit that human minds skirt in their darkest hours and he will climb out and never, never again give that bastard the opportunity to see the frailty of man.  No, he would stopper up all emotion, all sympathy, tolerance and understanding, become cold and inscrutable, not waver in his loathing; not languish in his fear; not rest until he was free and Sherlock Homes was dead.


	8. Post Script

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hmmmed and hahhhed about adding this paragraph at the end of the last chapter and in the end left it out but 'I'm so changeable' and I think most of you know where this is going anyway so....

Secret glimpse at Sherlock's POV (To avoid SPOILERS - skip to next chapter!) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
Through tear blurred eyes and reticence, John Watson did not glance up at the angel of death in boorish curls and Chinese silk, did not see the revulsion and remorse that made his own supernatural eyes sting or his blood reel in its bodily casing, nor the fine tremor that belied discomfort or the stupefied lead that weighed his body in place and yearned to run, to hide or most startlingly to embrace, bury under the covers and keep the bogeymen at bay. John Watson didn’t see. John Watson didn’t know and he thanked an unknown god for it.  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	9. "These Four Walls are at the Heart of the Kingdom"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So so sorry that it's been so long! Uni was hectic and then house moving took months and I'm still living in box city! I haven't abandoned this fic but beg for your patience as I'm still only a chapter ahead! Sigh!  
> Anyway I can't thank you all enough for your wonderful comments that have dragged my back to the computer and got me posting a new chapter.  
> We left John basically having a meltdown in disgust and horror at Sherlock's 'torture chamber' (every vamp fic needs a good old fashioned dungeon, right?). Anyway this is the aftermath picking up during a rather severe PSTD episode, forcing Sherlock to actually be comforting (well a little until he's really not - evil vampire, remember!) and a candid conversation is had which leads to a new resolution for John.  
> Chapter title and last words of chapter are nicked from a Seth Lakeman song. He sings some amazing war stories and could challenge Sherlock on the violin. Deep and talented and so out of my league!!!  
> Anyway here's a youtube link if you want to check it out: [1643](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbvQboNF_M0)

 

Chapter 8

 

“John!” He was comforted that his voice did not waver. It was forceful and demanding of attention.

 

“John!” He could see his soldier was not with him in the present, not any more. He approached cautiously.

 

“John!” The body before him jerked and shuddered, those expressive eyes were glazed, hands balled into fists and every muscle tense and alert.

 

“John!” He bent and placed a hand on a stiff shoulder. The effect was immediate. The shoulder rolled backwards, the weight balance altered, spinning and standing on one foot while the other snapped to stabilise. Immediately a hard ulna cracked down upon the invading wrist followed by a right fist engaging a powerful hook to a chiselled jaw.

 

“John STOP!” The blow was expected. The rate of recovery was not as Sherlock slammed the soldier’s arms down, trapping them by his sides, stepping around him and wrapping his torso like a boa constrictor.

 

“Calm down, soldier…Captain Watson!” That registered. Lucky guess. “Breathe.” Wide terrified pupils constricted to focus and harsh breathes were drawn in through the nose and out through the mouth as if the mere command made them so. Maybe it did. With thoughts spiralling maybe their issue was familiar enough, sensible enough, self-serving and grounding enough to be involuntary as breathing should be.

 

Quickly the combative urges became controlled if not absent and a deathly calm swept through the shorter man’s body as if he were first aflame then doused by flowing water from the nap to the navel, fire consumed and water sacrificing itself to steam, as it continued to dowse and pull around the feet. A voice emerged as gentle as thunder. “I will kill you, slowly and painfully,” it hissed.

 

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Sherlock’s voice was strangely laboured, almost pained.

 

“You are a deadman walking.”

 

“Common myth about Vampires. I’m not actually dead.”

 

“You will be. Let me go!” John started to struggle and surprisingly Sherlock immediately released him now that he was once again himself and stepped back.

 

“All this is for show. I’ve never used it.”

 

John span to face him. “Why should I believe you? You’re a monster.” His fists were failing, his voice hitching, almost hysterically.

 

“I’m a man.” Was bellowed back. “And I’m not lying to you. Yes, they’ve been used but not by me. You said it yourself, John, I don’t want you dead.” He stood completely still, the power dynamic turned on its head as he tried not to spook the man in front of him. He wasn’t afraid of potential violence, his transport can handle it but it was so tiresome when unwarranted.

 

“Not yet.” John was sure, certain in his conviction.

 

“Not ever. They’re a deterrent nothing more. Yes, I will hurt you and yes, at times it will be more than you can bear but only because I have to. Hate me if you must. It will not change your fate but don’t make me a villain John, not for imagined evils I have not committed. This whole museum is an assault to your humanity. It’s repulsive and gruesome and sick but it’s your history John. Don’t blame me for the truths of your legacy that you’re unwilling to face.”

 

“You want me to think we’re as bad as you?”

 

“Not all of you and definitely not you.” His voice softened and eyes hesitated to commit to a direction of focus.

 

John seemed to stop, not physically but behind the eyes, within the mind. Sherlock could sense that plodding brain trying to think and reason but instead of being aggrieved by it he was impressed, somewhat impressed, a little, tiny bit, most men once they’ve climbed on their metaphorical high horse refuse reason, would be too proud to reconsider, would argue a black crow white just to save face. But John is thinking, really thinking.

 

John could feel his resolve wavering and had no idea why. Sherlock was a vampire. Was he so conditioned by the need to believe in the innate goodness of others that he would extend that courtesy to his own jailer? And yet the words somehow rang true. Oh he had no problem believing that the vampire before him could and would hurt and torture others but he couldn’t imagine him doing so without some grand and lofty end in mind and a lot of these instruments of torture would kill quickly and mercilessly and again Sherlock seemed too kind or cruel to end a life so insignificantly. And the bastard is right that it’s the psychological associations and implications of the images of the vicious inventions around him that repulse and sicken. He has no proof that Sherlock himself has committed such atrocities and it is likely that the blood spilled by these creations was, in the majority, spilled by his fellow men. He will still kill the vampire to escape but it’s a testament to who he is that he finds it much harder to muster any rage at acts conducted upon his own person than acts infusing suffering and pain in others.

 

“But you still plan on torturing me?” he finally asks though it’s not much of a question.

 

“Yes.” Serious and succinct.

 

“Why?” he counters.

 

“Because it is my nature.”

 

It’s not an apology but suddenly John is overcome with insight and almost pity. Can you blame an animal for killing its prey? How much choice in his actions does this creature really have?

 

“But you don’t wish to kill me?”

 

“No. I am simply establishing my authority, my claim. You have to understand that you can’t resist me, that I own you. For some reason humans respond most convincingly to fear and pain. I can’t go softly on you and believe that you will suddenly submit to me and nor should you. That would be dull. I would regard you with much less respect if you didn’t value your freedom and fight for it. So we have to go through this dance and if you’re sensible it doesn’t have to go so far as for you to lose the majority of who you are along the way. I will hurt you. I will push you and test you until you accept my power and decree and then perhaps simply because it is a diversion and amuses me and because you should be grateful to endure something so intense and intimate and live. It will make you stronger, more appreciative of the breath in your lungs and the blood in your veins that so many take for granted. It will be more than you think you can take but just as much as you actually can. I will only punish you further if you persist in your disobedience and then such instruments as these may come into play but that will be of your own choosing.”

 

Well that was a lot to take in but also somehow reassuring at least for a soldier and John is a soldier, not _was_ , IS, it is as much a part of him now as suturing wounds, favouring Chinese over Indian or needing purpose and meaning in his life and what is more engrossing than walking hand in hand with danger, every moment precious in its existence, so much to consider, to endure, to survive. If he’s honest with himself he’s come to believe that living shouldn’t be easy and now it most definitely isn’t.

 

“Ok.”

 

“Ok?” the vampire quirks an imperious eyebrow, eyes back to being intense and sinfully alluring in their promise to thrill and pain and deliver experiences and sensations that were vastly becoming foreign to a man ‘invalided home’.

 

“Ok, for now,” and John actually smirks.

 

A half curled lip returns the expression, “For now.”

 

The pact is sealed and his fate is set. At least this way John is an active participant in his own destruction, never passive. He is absurdly grateful for this small modicum of control and feels something unwind within him now he knows his place, his combat mission with eerily similar rules to the desert, endure and live. He can't win, not yet; can't fight this foe with the scales tipped so dramatically as for one rotund weight to be surely grounded while the other floats precariously skyward that the fall would not fail to kill. Perhaps the first has crashed through the earth's crust and descended into hell while the other gropes blindly for heaven. Lose the battle and win the war or be the first one scaling the wall, the first shot down, the first blood running into the trenches still on home ground.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I'd just add this link to a wonderful music video that I've been playing constantly for inspiration: [Ambrevale's Sherlock/John - I'm in Love with a Vampire](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gOmrhzquiM)


End file.
